


Count to Ten

by midnightdiddle (gooseberry)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Body Horror, M/M, Mpreg, mako poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1883760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/midnightdiddle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i></i><br/>"Boss?" Reno asks, and Rufus clenches his mouth shut, breathes through his teeth, then throws up again.</p><p>"Mako," he says when he's leaning against the wall, tired and shaky and with a sickly taste in his mouth.  "Sometimes."</p><p>Reno's cleaning up the carpet, shirt sleeves rolled up and jacket spread over Rufus's lap, and doesn't even bother looking up.  "Right," Reno says, "withdrawals."</p><p>----</p><p>Mako can be blamed for a lot of things.  Sephiroth, ShinRa, Midgar and Geostigma.  It can be blamed for life, too.  Rufus/Reno, m-preg, tragedy?  Uh, yeah.  No specific timeline, but most likely post-DoC.</p><p>FFVII ficlet written for <span class="ljuser i-ljuser i-ljuser-type-P"></span><a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://x-saturnine.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://x-saturnine.livejournal.com/"></a><b>x_saturnine</b> .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Count to Ten

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [livejournal](http://midnightdiddle.livejournal.com/157286.html#cutid1).
> 
> Warnings at the end.

It's the day that Tseng asks him if he's alright that Rufus finally decides that maybe there is something wrong. He doesn't want to think about it, though, because that way lies madness, and he has too much to do to worry about things he can't change. Or things that shouldn't change. Like him. And his body.

"Hey, Boss," Reno says, and Rufus is sure that only Reno can make the word "boss" sound like a catcall. "Tseng said you were laid up sick. Coming down with something?"

Rufus is also sure that only Reno can make sprawling into an art, and so he closes his eyes, holds his breath, and ignores the way Reno all but crawls into his lap, long limbs spreading over Rufus's.

"Don't you have a job?" Rufus asks, and the bite in his voice isn't all feigned. He thinks to push Reno from his chair, his _lap_ , but the thought of actually moving makes his stomach twist.

"Yeah, sure," Reno says, his voice careless and near Rufus's ear. Then there's a breath, and Reno's voice sounds curious and, if Rufus dares to think it, concerned. "You okay, Boss? You don't look so good."

"I'm fine," Rufus snaps, and he pushes Reno off him, turns to the side, and takes care not to hit the papers when he throws up. He curls his hands into the carpet, holds on, and can feel Reno's hands on his neck, holding back his hair. He's not sure which of them is shaking more.

"Boss?" Reno asks, and Rufus clenches his mouth shut, breathes through his teeth, then throws up again.

"Mako," he says when he's leaning against the wall, tired and shaky and with a sickly taste in his mouth. "Sometimes."

Reno's cleaning up the carpet, shirt sleeves rolled up and jacket spread over Rufus's lap, and doesn't even bother looking up. "Right," Reno says, "withdrawals."

x

Mako can be blamed for everything. Sephiroth, ShinRa, Midgar and Geostigma. It can be blamed for life, too, and Rufus takes it as the double-edged sword it is.

"Mako-shakes," he tells Elena, sending her out of his office with a careless wave of a still-shaking hand. Elena gives him a thoughtful look, then a pitying look, and nods as she goes, tripping from the room. Rufus rests his head against the back of his chair, closes his eyes tight, and ignores the way he can feel the Lifestream sliding through his veins.

"But the Geostigma," Reno begins, because Reno was always the one who questioned Rufus. Rufus sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose, and tries not to cover his mouth with his hand.

"Geostigma is unreliable. We never knew what it did, or how to cure it." It's easy enough to lie, and if Rufus has shrugged off one disease for another, why should he bother with names or other semantics.

"How do we fix it, then?" Reno knocks his hip against the wall, scowls like he can take on the world and win. Rufus wonders if he can.

"I'm already fixing it," Rufus says, and he looks down at the papers on his desk, shifts a few letters to the side. "Don't you have a job to be doing?"

"Sure, Boss," Reno drawls, dragging himself from the office, following Elena's footsteps. Rufus listens to the door shut, to his Turks taunt each other in the other room, and wonders how a single man can be so weak.

x

He has a knife that's nearly two handwidths long, and a half-handwidth wide. Its edge is razor-sharp, and it slides like silk out of its sheathe. He thinks it might've been a gift from when he was the son of ShinRa's president, but he can't remember who gave it to him. It is, heavy in his hand, perfect for his needs.

He stands in front of the mirror, half-naked and a little cold, and stares at himself in the reflection. He surveys his body, the bones that are beginning to show in one way, the stomach that's begin to show in another. Pulls back his hair, wonders why his hands are sweating, then cuts.

He bleeds more than he expected, but his blood is red, not the green of Mako, and so he thinks maybe, maybe if he keeps at it, and right there, he can fix things, turn them the way they used to be. And maybe he'll empty out all of him, but then he wouldn't have this life screaming at him, pounding through his blood in heartbeats of two and two, side by side.

It's Rude that finds him, grabs his arms, pinches his nerves until the knife clatters to the tile. Rude's fingers are big and Rufus can feel them slide across his stomach, slip through the blood and skin and muscles.

"Boss," Rude says, low and pointed, and his face is dark in the reflection. Rufus doesn't bother fighting. Rude's a half-size bigger, and for all that Rufus might do, Rufus isn't a fool. He hangs limp in Rude's arms, lets his head lean against Rude's shoulder, and listens to Rude's heartbeat.

"Elena," Rude calls, and Elena's voice is faint through the walls. Her face slides into the reflection on the other side of Rude, opposite of Rufus, and Rufus watches her eyes and mouth.

"I'll get Tseng," she says, and Rufus can't help but laugh.

x

"What is it, then?" Reno asks, slouching, hands in his pockets.

"An infection," Rufus says, and bites the tip of his tongue when Tseng says, carefully, "We don't know yet."

"My ass. You got balls, Boss?" Reno's face looks half-wild, like it did when Reno was young, and Rufus was, too, and all the world was the Turks'. "Or did you trade them in for a cunt?"

Rufus watches Rude's fist cuff Reno's head, watches Reno curse and slam his way out of the room, and frowns. "Keep him from destroying anything," he snaps, and Elena jerks to attention, leaves with a glance at Tseng.

"Sir," Tseng begins, and Rufus interrupts him, feeling tired and broken and tied to the world.

"I," he says, "am going to fix this," and Tseng looks at him with sad eyes.

x

"Hey, Boss," Reno says, leaning over the bed, hands on either side of Rufus's shoulders. Rufus sighs, turns his face away, and doesn't quite curse.

"How you feeling?" Reno continues blithely. "You look better."

"Reno," Rufus begins, staring at Reno's hand, the fingers pressing against the sheets, the grit beneath the broken and chewed fingernails.

"You look fucking sexy," Reno breathes, hot on Rufus's neck, and Rufus grits his teeth. "Wanna fuck? Already in bed, and I can turn you over, fuck you--"

" _Reno_ ," Rufus snaps, and when he looks Reno's shoulders are hunched together, and Reno looks entirely hunted. "Shut up and get off my bed."

"Sure, Boss," Reno says, moving until he's sitting on the edge of Rufus's bed, close enough for his hip to press against Rufus's leg. Rufus closes his eyes, counts to ten, and wonders if Reno was always this much of a lost cause.

"What are you doing here?"

"Work." Reno's smile is higher on the left side, and the world seems as lopsided as Reno, full of kids who grew up to wear their daddy's shoes, shoot their daddy's gun, break their daddy's world. "Make sure you don't bleed out on the bathroom floor again."

"Of course," Rufus says. He startles when Reno reaches out, presses his hand against the twist of blankets that almost make Rufus look normal, long and thin without the extra heartbeat that sings _life, life_ in his body.

"There anything you won't do, Boss?" Reno asks, fingers pressed against the curve of stomach, the scattering of stitches, hard enough to make Rufus wince.

"Is there anything you won't do, Reno?" Rufus asks back, and Reno's smile is wider this time, all teeth.

"Mako makes us do crazy shit," Reno says, and he leans over Rufus, kisses him, and Rufus kisses him back, catching his fingers in Reno's hair. In the end, everything can be blamed on Mako, from flower-girls in the water to SOLDIERs in the Lifestream, slipping life-death into the world.

x

Rufus holds the gun to his head, counts to ten, and fires.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for mpreg, self mutilation, and suicide.


End file.
